Confusion
by Cissmoll
Summary: Spy AU. Lightning Farron has just finished her training and is finally ready to work as an agent for the CIA. Her first mission is simple – all she has to do is collect information about a scientist and possible terrorist named Hope Estheim. When nothing turns out as planned, Lightning and Hope have a decision to make. Who should they trust - their superiors or each other?
1. Chapter 1

"Are you sure you're ready for this?" Sazh asked, a worried wrinkle forming between his eyebrows. "I don't know what they're thinking. It's your first mission. They should at least have given you a partner."

"I'll be fine," Lightning said. "I'm just collecting information. I can do this, Sazh. Trust me."

They were sharing a booth at the Starbucks on Chain Bridge Road, having their weekly afternoon coffee. Usually, they'd sit and talk for hours, but this day they were going to have to cut it short. Lightning was finally done with her yearlong Clandestine Service Trainee program and was about to go out on her very first mission as an agent for the CIA.

Sazh frowned, clearly not convinced. "It's just weird, that's all. I've never even heard of a subdivision that gives out orders via text messages. You haven't even met your handler! You know, when I asked my superiors about a job for you, my highest hope was that they'd give you a desk job somewhere. I have no idea why they decided to put you through training and make you an actual field operative. You do have experience from being a soldier, but they usually demand that their applicants have at least a bachelor degree in something." He sighed, running his fingers through his thick, black hair. "You don't fit the criteria, but they still took you in. Don't you think that's strange? Claire, I—"

"Don't call me that," Lightning snapped, knocking back the last of her coffee. "Maybe they took me in because I'm really damn good? I was a good soldier, and I'm going to be a great agent. Just because you can't see me as anything other than the fuck-up I used to be doesn't mean others have to."

He shook his head. "I've never seen you as a fuck-up. I always knew you'd find your way. I'm just worried about you, that's all."

"Don't be." She stood up and picked up her backpack from the floor. "I'm not going to mess things up this time. I know I can do this."

Sazh sighed again. "Just be careful, alright? I promised your mother I'd look after you and Serah, and I've already broken that promise once. Please, don't make me break it again."

She gave him a small smile. "I won't."

Lightning left the café, heading towards a big, ugly van parked a couple of blocks away. The day she'd finished her training, she'd received an envelope with an old Nokia cellphone and a car key in the mail. She'd found the white van on the parking lot right beneath the balcony of her apartment. It was indiscreet and had a weird smell, but she liked it anyway. The trunk was full of gadgets and weapons, and she'd begun to think of it as her office. A small, smelly office, but still. It was _hers_.

She checked the cellphone again. According to the text message, her mission was to collect information about a fusion bomb. The target was a man named Hope Estheim, a genius scientist and inventor who usually spent his nights at the Ritz-Carlton hotel on Old Dominion Drive. The mission was simple—all she had to do was to make him talk.

She unlocked the van and climbed into the trunk. Her mobile office wasn't exactly roomy, but it was big enough to serve as a dressing room. After taking off her tank top and jeans, she put on a short, black dress. She covered her pink hair with a blond wig and applied some deep red lipstick. Hope Estheim's preferences weren't covered in his file, but the mysterious blonde was usually a safe bet. She strapped a small blade to the inside of her thigh and hid her SIG M11 in a small, black purse. It was just an information collection mission, but she liked to be prepared for anything.

She hid a small microphone in the plunging neckline of her dress. Her handler would be listening in on her conversation with the target, and when she'd collected enough information, her handler would send her a text message with further instructions. _It would have been nice to at least know who my handler is, _she thought as she got out of the trunk and into the driver seat. Sazh was right—it was kind of strange that she'd never even met her employer. _But it's a job. A good job. _Her working conditions weren't optimal, but they were still a lot better than they'd been at most of her previous jobs.

She opened the glove compartment and pulled out her target's file. _I wonder how he lives with himself, _she thought, eying the facts one final time. _He's a scientist. He has to know how many innocents a bomb like that would kill. _Her target was working as a consult for one of the shadiest corporations in the Virginia. She didn't know what plans Valhalla Corporation had for that fusion bomb, but she was sure they weren't good.

The clock had just struck seven when Lightning stepped inside the hotel lounge. Soft jazz was playing through the speakers on the wall. She walked up to the bar, hoping she looked more confident than she actually felt. The CST program had covered situations like this, but it was still her first real mission. _I'm not going to mess this up, _she thought to herself. Ever since she returned from her second tour in Afghanistan, she'd lost more jobs than she could count. If Sazh hadn't gotten her into the CST program, she would probably have been living on the street by now. She clenched her fists. _I'm not going to mess this up. _

She ordered a martini and looked around the room. The lounge was almost empty except for two women conversing quietly in the corner of the room and a handsome man with a laptop sitting at a table close to the door. The man had medium-length, silvery hair and was wearing a white shirt and slacks. His green eyes were fixed on the computer screen. Lightning nodded to herself. The man she was looking at was without a doubt Hope Estheim.

She picked up her cocktail glass and approached him. He glanced up at her, and then quickly returned to his work. _Damn it. _A revealing dress and some lipstick wouldn't be enough to make this target talk. She walked up to him and placed her drink on the table. He looked up from the computer screen again, raising his eyebrows in annoyance.

"Excuse me," she said, faking a shy smile. "You're Hope Estheim, aren't you? I read an article about you last week. You're the scientist who's almost figured out how to use inertial confinement fusion as an energy source, right?"

"Yeah, that's me." He looked at her with a spark of genuine curiosity in his eyes. "You read Fusion Science and Technology?"

"Of course. I've been a subscriber for years." Lightning sat down at the table and took a sip from her martini. "I don't understand why people still research about nuclear fission. Fusion is so much cleaner and has an almost unlimited supply of fuel. Sure, creating the right circumstances for it to work is a lot trickier than simple nuclear fission, but it would definitely be worth it. You just have to compare the half-life of the radioactive waste to see how idiotic it is to keep using fission instead of fusion."

She kept a wary eye on Hope as she talked. His initial suspicion and annoyance quickly turned into childish enthusiasm. She had no idea what she was talking about, but her target definitely did.

He grinned widely. "That's what I always say. You have no idea for how long I had to search for a sponsor that would actually fund my ICF research. They all ask me about the potential profit. Like the idea of a clean, infinite power source isn't enough." He closed his laptop, shifting his full attention to her. "I'm glad someone shares my view on this. I never expected to find someone like you in a place like this."

"Technically, I'm the one who found you," she said, smiling sweetly. "Tell me, how far have you gotten in your research? Have you come up with a way to reach ignition yet?"

Hope tilted his head to the side, looking at her carefully. After a few seconds of consideration, he leaned forward, his eyes darting left and right before meeting hers again.

"I'm not supposed to talk about this, but I've actually managed to design a driver and a target chamber that actually works," he said in a low voice. "My miniature reactor gives off more energy than you apply to it. Valhalla Corporation is going to make a full-sized version of it. In a year or two, everyone will know what fusion is." He grinned. "I made the impossible possible."

Lightning's eyes widened. _He's already finished? _She swallowed hard. "That's fantastic, but . . . aren't you concerned about the possibility of a nuclear war? Inertial confinement fusion can be used to create atomic bombs, right?"

He blinked. "I guess. I don't know why anyone would do that, though. I mean, it's _fusion_. I think most people would pick an infinite power source over a nuclear war."

She analyzed his face as he talked. All her instincts told her that he truly believed what he was saying. _He has no idea that he's a terrorist, _she realized. _His research could destroy the world and he isn't even aware of it. _It amazed her how someone so smart could be so clueless.

A soft vibration in her purse told her that her mission had just been updated. She excused herself and headed over to the ladies' room to read the message.

_Update: Collect blueprints. Eliminate evidence. Terminate target. _

Lightning's hands began to shake. _They want me to kill him. _Her heart skipped a beat and then started racing. _I'm going to have to kill again. _For a moment, she was no longer in the ladies' room of a fancy hotel. She was standing on a sandy field under the hot desert sun. In the distance, she could hear the sound of gunshots and screaming children. She took a breath, and immediately regretted it. The air smelled of burning bodies.

_Stop it, _she scolded herself, closing her eyes. _I'm not there anymore. I'm home. I'm safe. _She opened her eyes again and found herself on the bathroom floor. When she took a breath, all she could sense was the smell of urine and disinfectants. No more desert sun. No more burning bodies. She stood up and straightened out some wrinkles in the skirt of her dress. _I can do this, _she thought, trying to repress the nauseating feeling in her gut. _It's for the safety of the country. The greater good. It's nothing personal. _She accidentally caught her own reflection in the bathroom mirror. The woman staring back at her looked haunted.

"He doesn't even know he's a terrorist," she muttered out loud, "but orders are orders. I'll handle it."

When she exited the bathroom, her target was no longer in the lounge. She left the hotel and walked back to her van. According to the file, Hope Estheim had a big laboratory in the basement of his house. To erase all the evidence of his world-changing invention, she was going to have to blow up the whole lab. She climbed into the trunk and started to rummage through its many drawers. The people who'd stocked her van had been pretty generous when it came to explosives. She decided to leave the more volatile ones and picked out some blocks of C4 and put them in her backpack. C4 could destroy almost everything. If she detonated a couple of blocks in Hope Estheim's basement, there would no longer be a laboratory in there. _But I need to find the blueprints first, _she thought as she changed out of her dress. _I can't risk blowing them up. _

She put on a tank top and a pair of khaki-colored pants with more pockets than anyone could possibly have use for. After removing the blond wig, she put her messy, pink locks up in a ponytail. She fished out her M11 from her purse and put it in a shoulder holster instead. The holster wasn't the most comfortable of contraptions, but under her leather jacket it was close to invisible. With her pockets full of extra ammo and the microphone attached to the collar of her jacket, she was finally ready to go. She got out of the trunk and into the driver seat, once again pulling out Hope Estheim's file from the glove compartment. _I'm going to kill this man tonight, _she thought, feeling slightly nauseous. Yes, she'd killed people before, but that had been in life-or-death situations. Kill or be killed. This, on the other hand, was an assassination. Murder in cold blood. A part of her wondered if she'd ever be able to look at herself in the mirror again if she pulled this off. _For the safety of the country, _she tried to convince herself. _For the greater good. _

At midnight, she decided that she'd waited long enough. It didn't really matter if her target was asleep or not—she was going to have to kill him anyway. She parked the van a couple of blocks away from Hope Estheim's house and walked the rest of the way. Her target had installed security cameras with almost complete coverage of the garden and the street outside. If she wanted to get in without getting caught on tape, she was going to have to do it on foot.

She climbed over the seven-foot fence and jumped down on the other side. The file had shown her exactly where the security cameras were and where there were openings in their coverage. She sneaked closer to the house. The house was big—a lot bigger than she'd expected. _The blueprints are somewhere in there, _she thought. _This is going to be a long night. _

The security cameras covered all the doors, but according to the file, there was a window she could use to get in without being noticed. She carefully crossed the garden and stopped right beneath the window.

"Alright," she muttered to herself, placing the suction cup of her glass cutter on the window glass. "Here we go, then." She cut out a small, circular hole and stuck her hand through it. Her hand quickly found the window hatch. When she'd opened the window from the inside, all she had to do was to climb inside.

Lightning walked quietly through the dark rooms. She could barely see anything, but she'd studied the house layout on the map long enough to navigate the rooms in blindness. The door in the hallway that led to the basement was locked, so she fished out her lock picks from one of her many pockets. A couple of seconds later, the door was open. _He really should have used a better lock, _she thought smugly as she made her way down the stairs. _Anyone with a hairpin or two could pick a lock like that. _

The door to the laboratory was a thick, heavy blast door, but thankfully, her target had left it unlocked. She entered the room and turned on the lights.

"Shit," she muttered, taking it all in. The lab was big—a lot bigger than it had looked on the map. In the middle of the room was a gigantic machine. Lightning had never seen a fusion reactor before, but she was certain that that monstrosity had to be it. In the file, she'd read that her target usually worked alone in his basement. _He's been doing tests on this thing all by himself? s_he thought, unexpectedly impressed. _It's a wonder he hasn't accidentally blown himself up already. _

She dumped her backpack on the floor and grabbed the blocks of C4. When she'd surrounded the machine with explosives, she began to look for the blueprints. She noticed a fax machine in the corner of the room that seemed to have a stack of papers in it. _Please be the blueprints, _she thought as she approached it. She picked the papers up and eyed them skeptically. She didn't really understand what she was looking at, but it did sort of resemble the monster machine.

"I've collected the blueprints," she said into her microphone, dumping the papers in her backpack. "I'm moving forward with the mission now."

She connected the C4 bombs to a timer and set it to activate the detonators in sixty seconds. It was more than enough time for her to get out of the basement. _I hope the house won't collapse, _she thought as she picked up her backpack and walked towards the exit. _He wouldn't install a blast door if the rest of the room wasn't blast proof, right? _

Lightning was just about to reach out and grab the handle of the heavy door when someone opened it from the other side. She took a step back and quickly pulled out her M11.

"Who are you and what are you doing in my lab?" Hope Estheim said, scowling at her. He took a second look at her and noticed the gun in her hands. "What's going on?"

"Back away," she said in a calm, steady voice. "Now."

He took a step back, but then he stepped forward again. "I don't know what you think you're doing, but I want an explanation. What's going on? Who are you?"

Lightning glanced at the timer. _Thirty seconds. _

"I'm going to shoot you if you don't get out of the way," she said, decocking the gun. "Don't be stupid. Just back away."

"Is that . . . is that a timer?" His eyes widened. "You're going to blow it all up. You're going to destroy my reactor!" He ran towards the machine with panic in his eyes. "No, no no no! Turn it off! Turn it off, damn you!"

_Fifteen seconds. _Before she could think it through, she'd grabbed Hope's arm and dragged him through the room by force. She gave him a hard push through the doorway, making him stumble and fall to the ground. _Five seconds. _She ran out of the laboratory and grabbed the heavy door in an attempt to close it, but before she could shut it completely, a deafening boom echoed through the basement. The shockwave hit her milliseconds later, sending her flying through the air. She crashed on the floor right next to Hope. Dark spots clouded her vision, and even though she tried to hold on to her consciousness with all her might, she could still feel it slipping away from her.

In the corner of her eye, she could see something moving. Hope was still alive. A part of her was annoyed by that fact. Another part was . . . No, she didn't even want to think about what that other part of her was feeling.

_I should have killed him when I had the chance, _she thought. _I should have let him get blown to bits with his reactor. I should have let him die. I should have . . ._

Her consciousness gave out before she could finish the thought.


	2. Chapter 2

Hope shook his head, and for a moment he felt like he was about to throw up. The ringing in his ears was so loud it was almost painful. He forced himself back up on his feet and opened the door to his laboratory. His heart sank as took it all in.

"No," he whispered, "no, no, no."

The lab didn't even look like a lab anymore. The pieces of metal that had once been his fusion reactor were scattered all over the room. The sprinkler system was doing its best to drench the smoking pieces in water, destroying everything electronic in the process. Several years of hard work were gone. He almost felt like crying.

He turned around to face the woman who had just ruined his life and noticed that she was still lying on the stone tile floor right outside the lab. _The explosion must have knocked her out, _he thought, kneeling down next to her. He placed his hand on her wrist and tried to find her pulse. When he felt her calm, steady heartbeats with his fingertips, he felt strangely relieved. She had some shallow wounds on her face, but otherwise she seemed to be unharmed.

"Now what?" he muttered to himself, staring at the woman. The most logical thing to do was to call the police, but then he'd have to actually show them the basement. According to the house layout, the basement was about the same size as the house. In reality, it was bigger. _Way _bigger. He'd had to dig it out so the fusion reactor would fit in it, and since he'd known he would never get the permission to do it, he'd gotten it rebuilt in secret. Then there was the fact that he was doing nuclear experiments in a densely populated district in the middle of Washington D.C. If he called the police, he would have a lot of explaining to do. He decided that he'd rather avoid that scenario.

"So what do I do?" He frowned at the unconscious woman. "Wait . . . "

Suddenly, he realized that he recognized her. Her hair was no longer blond and she wasn't wearing any makeup anymore, but she was definitely the girl from the Ritz-Carlton hotel lounge. _She played me, _he thought, glaring at her. _She played me and I fell for it. _He clenched his fists. The progress of his fusion reactor had always been one of his most well-guarded secrets, but since he'd finally finished it, he'd let his guard down. She'd been pretty and he'd let his guard down. _And now it's all ruined. _He didn't know who she was and why she wanted to destroy his reactor, but he was going to find out.

Hope ran upstairs and hurried to his bedroom. In a box in one of his closets, he kept some of the gadgets he'd invented over the years. He hesitated for a moment before picking up two silvery cuffs. Small diodes on the cuffs lit up the moment he touched them, one in green and the other in red. He locked the green one around his wrist. The light disappeared the moment the cuff touched his skin, making it look like an ordinary bracelet again. He hurried back downstairs, feeling a little queasy about his plan. The cuff system was neat and functional, but it was definitely one of his most morally gray inventions. He kneeled down next to the unconscious woman again and clasped the other cuff around her wrist. When he held his cuff against hers, six digital zeros lit up on hers while a number pad popped up on his. He punched in a pin code and watched as the countdown started. _Twenty-four hours, _he thought, pressing a button to make the numbers fade away. _It should be more than enough to figure out who she is and why she's here. _

He began to search her pockets and her backpack. He found some explosives, ammunition, lock picks, a car key, a folding knife, an old cellphone—and the blueprints to his reactor. _Was she trying to steal this? _he wondered, staring at the folder. _Why? _

He went through the phone and only found one, single message. At first, he didn't understand it, but then it clicked. _Terminate target? _His heart began to race. _Am I the target? Was she here to kill me? _He looked at the woman again. She was a lot younger than he'd initially thought—she had to be in her younger twenties. To him, she definitely didn't look like a killer.

Since the message in her phone hadn't received an answer, he concluded that the woman probably communicated with her higher-ups in a different way. Reluctantly, he unzipped her leather jacket, even though it made him feel like a pervert. On the collar, he found a small microphone. He wasn't sure if it had survived the explosion, but he crushed it under his foot just to be sure. After he'd made sure she was unarmed and no longer bugged, he sat down next to her to wait for her to wake up.

Minutes passed. After a while, the wounds on the woman's face began to bother him. They weren't very deep, but they were still bleeding. He went upstairs again and grabbed some band-aids before returning to the basement. Somewhat begrudgingly, he began to bandage her wounds. He still despised her for destroying his reactor, but leaving wounds open like that didn't feel humane.

About halfway through, the woman finally opened her eyes. Hope scrambled backwards and got back up on his feet. The woman shook her head and sat up, clearly disoriented. He could tell the exact moment she realized where she was and what had happened. Her right hand immediately reached for her gun in her shoulder holster. She frowned when she realized the gun wasn't there anymore.

"Yeah, I took it," Hope said, placing his hands on his hips. "You blew up my reactor. Why?"

The woman didn't answer. She glanced to the side and noticed her gun and her backpack lying on the floor a couple of feet away. Her eyes quickly returned to Hope, scanning him from head to toe. She tilted her head slightly to the side, as if she was calculating something.

"If you're planning to attack me, I wouldn't recommend it," he continued. He discretely placed his hand on his silver cuff, praying he wouldn't have to use it. "Who are you? Who sent you? Why did you blow up my laboratory?"

Still no answer. A few seconds passed before the woman pounced. She was fast, way faster than Hope had expected, but he still managed to press the button on his cuff before she could reach her gun. An electric pulse spread from her cuff to the rest of her body. Her body jerked, but she still continued forward. He pressed the button again, watching as a second, even stronger electric shock hit her. She gasped and sank down on her knees, her body trembling uncontrollably. The guilt hit Hope like a punch in the gut.

"What the hell did you do to me?" she hissed, clawing at the cuff. "What is this? Get this thing off me!"

"You need to do as I say, o- or I'll shock you again," he said, feeling sick to his stomach as he moved past her and picked up her gun. "I created these cuffs for the FBI for discrete transportation of high-profile prisoners. In twenty-four hours, that cuff is going to give you a lethal electric shock. I know that you've been ordered to kill me, but if you do, you're going down with me. You're not getting that cuff off without my help."

She looked at him with disgust in her eyes—disgust and fear. "What the fuck is wrong with you? Who invents something like this? You're despicable."

"At least I'm not a murderer," he countered, a little sharper than necessary. He didn't want to admit it, but her words stung. "Who do you work for? Why did you blow up my reactor?"

He placed his hand on his cuff again and saw her visibly flinch. She glared at him, cradling her arm against her chest. She still refused to answer his questions, but he could tell that she was afraid of him now. Hope didn't like the feeling at all. He knew he should give her another shock to show that his threat was serious, but he couldn't bring himself to push the button. _I can't do it, _he thought, letting his hand drop from the cuff._ I can't hurt her again. _He was selfish, but he wasn't cruel.

Suddenly, his phone began to vibrate in his pants pocket. He pulled it out and checked the display. Someone had triggered the sensors in the garden, and the footage from the security cameras showed five men running across the lawn. They were all dressed in black and carrying guns in their hands.

"Are those your guys?" he asked the woman, showing her the phone. "Did you bring back up?"

"No," she said, frowning. "Those are definitely not my guys. They're way too amateurish to have gone through military training."

Hope raised an eyebrow. "You're with the military?"

She knit her brow, ignoring his question. "Does anyone know that your reactor is finished?"

"_Was _finished, you mean?"

"Is, was, whatever." She looked up from the phone, meeting his eyes. "This is important, Hope. Does anyone know?"

"I faxed the blueprints to my boss this morning."

"Oh, shit." The woman got up on her feet. "Give me my gun. We need to get out of here."

Hope crossed his arms. "Not until you tell me what the hell is going on."

She sighed impatiently. "Valhalla Corporation is going to use your research to create an atomic bomb. That's why I had to destroy the reactor. If you've already sent them the blueprints, you're not useful to them anymore. You're a liability and they're here to kill you. If you don't give me my gun _right now, _we're both going to die down here. Do you understand?"

Hope stared at her in shock. "An atomic bomb? That's impossible. They said . . . he said . . ."

He heard a loud crash followed by heavy footsteps coming from upstairs. _Is it true? _he wondered. _Were they seriously going to use my reactor to create a bomb? _He shuddered when he thought about how much destruction a bomb like that could cause. He'd always known that inertial confinement fusion could also be used as a weapon, but he'd never considered the possibility that someone would actually use _his _research for something like that.

"The gun, Hope." The woman took a step towards him. "If you want to survive, you're going to have to trust me."

Her big, blue eyes looked sincere and even a little frightened. If she was lying to him, trusting her would definitely lead to his death, but if she wasn't . . . _I have to find out the truth, _he thought. _I created that reactor. If my research is going to be used to create atomic bombs, it's my responsibility to stop it. _He glanced down at her wrist, checking the silver cuff. If she did have ulterior motives behind wanting her gun back, she would still have to keep him alive for as long as she wore the cuff. He didn't trust her, but he decided that sticking with her would give him the best odds of survival.

Reluctantly, he gave her the gun back. Her face immediately looked more relaxed as soon as she put her hands on it. She checked the magazine with calm, practiced movements before putting the gun back together and decocking it. It was definitely not the first time she handled a gun.

"Who are you?" Hope asked, staring at her in awe.

"I'm agent Lightning Farron. I'm with the CIA." She gave him a curt smile. "You can call me Light."

"The CIA? That's who you're working for—the CIA?" He leaned heavily against the wall, unsure whether or not his legs would carry him if he didn't hold on to something. _Someone just blew up my lab. I might have created a nuclear weapon. The CIA wants me dead. _He felt dizzy. _This is too much. _

The steps came closer and closer, and Hope could soon hear the men loudly descend the stairs.

"Stay back," Lightning said, moving towards the stairs with confident strides. When the first man reached the basement floor, she raised her gun and put a bullet in his head. She did it without any hesitation whatsoever. Hope took a step back, a wave of fear washing over him. Just a couple of minutes earlier, he'd been certain she wasn't actually a killer. Now, the truth was painfully obvious—this was not the first time Lightning Farron took a life.

When the second man reached the bottom of the stairs, Lightning elbowed him hard in the stomach, grabbed his head and slammed his face into the wall. The third guy almost managed to get his gun up in time. He fired a couple of shots before receiving a punch to the face and a kick in the groin. Lightning pulled the gun out of his hand and used it to kill the fourth and the fifth man. Their dead bodies fell to the ground.

Hope stared at the scene in front of him. He wasn't sure about two of the men, but the three Lightning had shot were definitely dead. There were bloodstains all over the walls and the floor. Lightning stood on the first step of the stairs, covered in blood and surrounded by dead bodies. For a moment, he thought she looked like some kind of goddess of death. When she turned around to look at him, he involuntarily took a step back. She gave him a humorless smile before kneeling down next to one of the bodies.

"They didn't even bring any extra ammo," she said in a low voice after searching the man's pockets. "I guess they thought you'd be an easy kill." When she wiped some sweat off her forehead, Hope noticed that her hands were shaking. Her face looked a lot paler than before.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Of course I'm okay," she snapped, clenching her trembling fists. "These guys didn't stand a chance against someone like me. They never even touched me. Come on, we have to leave. Now."

They had to climb over the dead bodies to get upstairs. Hope closed his eyes, forcing himself not to throw up. _She killed them, _he thought, swallowing hard. _She killed them for me. _He still wasn't sure if he believed her story about Valhalla Corporation's plans, but he knew that those men had to have been there for him. If he hadn't found Lightning in his lab, he would have been dead right now.

_Is this seriously happening? _he wondered. Everything was just too surreal to take in, and a part of him wanted to believe that the whole thing was just a nightmare. A weird, freakishly realistic nightmare. Another part of him knew that this was reality and was very well aware of how close he'd just gotten to dying. He shuddered. When someone had triggered the hidden alarm connected to the basement door, he'd thought it was a burglar or maybe a very disoriented junkie. Instead, he'd found _her_—a woman who'd managed to first ruin his life and then save it again a couple of minutes later. In a way, it was actually kind of impressive.

"Where are we going?" he asked her as they hurried through the house.

"I don't know."

"Why does the CIA want the blueprints to my reactor?"

"I don't know."

"Why—"

"I don't know!" she snapped. "This is my first mission, okay? None of this was supposed to happen. _This,_" she pointed at the silver cuff on her wrist, "was definitely not supposed happen. Could you please remove this thing now?"

They came to a stop in the hallway a couple of steps from the front door. Lightning gave him an expectant look, holding out her arm. Her wrist looked raw and swollen, and her attempt to claw the cuff off had left crescent-shaped indents in her skin. Hope hated the fact that one of his inventions had caused her injuries, but he still hesitated.

She raised her eyebrows. "Really? I just saved your life, you know."

"I know." Hope lowered his eyes. "I want to, but . . . I saw the text message, remember? Your mission is to kill me. Linking your life with mine is the only way for me to stay alive. It seems like at least two different organizations wants me dead right now, and if people come and try to kill me again, I'm going to need your protection. I'm sorry, but I'm not removing the cuff."

She wrinkled her nose in disgust. "So you're just going to just use me like some kind of human shield, huh? You really are an awful person."

He shrugged with badly faked nonchalance. "At least I'm not a killer."

Lightning got a strange look on her face. "No, you're not." For a moment, she almost looked like she was about to cry. Hope felt another pang of guilt pierce his chest. _She's a killer who hates killing, _he realized. _She hates killing, but she still killed for me. _

"I'm not saying I forgive you for destroying my reactor," he quickly said, "but I'm still grateful you saved my life. Thanks, Light. I would have been dead now if it wasn't for you."

Lightning shook her head. "Right. Whatever." She turned around and opened the door. "Come on. We're getting out of here."

She walked through the door and stepped out into the night. Hope followed her, wondering if his actions still qualified as simply selfish. Right there and then, they only felt cruel.


	3. Chapter 3

"I need to go to Valhalla Corporation's headquarters," Hope said. "I need to know what they're planning to do with my blueprints."

Lightning frowned. "They're making a bomb. What more do you need to know?"

They had just left Hope's house and were walking towards Lightning's van. Lightning still wasn't sure what to do or where to go when they got to it, but she knew she'd feel safer in her little mobile office.

"I need proof," Hope continued. "And since people are after me, I . . . I need you to come with me." He looked down on the ground, avoiding eye contact. "If you don't, there's a pretty big chance I'll be killed before I even get there. Which means you'd die too. So you have to take me there. You have to protect me."

She snorted. "You know, I'm beginning to seriously consider killing you myself. Being electrocuted can't be worse than having to spend another minute with you and your gigantic ego."

He frowned. "At least I'm not a—"

"A killer, I know," she interrupted. "You've already said that. Repeatedly."

_How the hell did this happen?_ she silently wondered. _How is it even possible to fuck up a mission so tremendously? _She glanced down at her arm, where the silver cuff was hidden beneath her leather jacket. There was a possibility that the tech-guys at the CIA could get the invention off her without getting her electrocuted, but she couldn't be sure. Then there was the fact that if she wanted to get help from the CIA, she would have to admit to failing her very first mission. In a way, she felt like this job was her final shot—her last chance of actually having a normal life again. She wasn't sure if she could live with herself if she got herself fired again. _I've got to finish this mission, _she thought, glancing at Hope. _It's going to take a little longer than planned, but I'm not giving up. I'm going to keep this job. _

"Is that yours?" Hope said as they reached the van, making no effort whatsoever to hide his disapproval.

"Yeah, she replied curtly. "If you don't like it, you can just stay right here. Be my guest. Don't blame me when the assassins find you."

Hope entered the van in silence. Lightning smirked to herself as she sat down in the driver seat. _He's definitely not as tough as he pretends to be. _

"Do you know the way to their headquarters?" Hope asked.

"No," she replied.

"Isn't it better if I drive, then?"

Lightning gave him a look that told him exactly how she felt about his suggestion.

Hope flinched. ". . . or not. Okay. Bad idea. I get it."

She leaned over to his side of the van and pulled his file from the glove compartment. The location of Valhalla Corporation's headquarters had to be somewhere in the folder. Before she could start searching for the right page, the file was jerked out of her hands.

"You have a file on me?" her passenger exclaimed. "How do they even know all this stuff? I . . . hey, why the hell does it say I'm a terrorist?"

She snatched the file back from him, frowning. "That's what we usually call people who create atomic bombs."

"But you know that wasn't my intention! You have to tell them I'm innocent. If you tell them I'm not a terrorist, you won't have to kill me anymore, right?"

She sighed. _So clueless. _"It doesn't matter what your intentions were. You know how to create this kind of fusion now, which makes you a threat to the country. To neutralize the threat completely, they're going to have to kill you. That's not going to change."

"Oh." He swallowed hard. "I'm . . . I'm never going back to my old life, am I?"

"No, you're not." She found that she could no longer meet his eyes, so she looked down on the file instead. "Sorry."

Lightning quickly found the address to the headquarters in the file and started the van. Hope stayed quiet for the whole ride. Though she was still angry at him for putting his despicable invention around her wrist and for ruining her mission, a part of her also pitied him. He was selfish and arrogant, but he was definitely not a terrorist.

She parked the van a couple of blocks away from the headquarters. It wasn't very likely that someone would remember her van being parked somewhere at two in the morning, but she didn't want to take the risk.

"Wait right here," she told Hope before climbing over the seats to get to the trunk. She opened the backpack and dumped most of the remaining blocks of C4 in the same drawer she'd found them. At first, she thought about leaving the folding knife in the backpack, but then she gave in and put it in her pants pocket instead. She always felt safer when she kept it at hand. When she glanced at her reflection in the small mirror on the wall, she noticed that she had bandages on her cheeks.

"What the hell?" she muttered, taking a closer look. She ripped one of band-aids off and found a shallow cut. _I must have hurt myself in the explosion, _she realized. She glanced at Hope, who was still sitting motionless in the front seat. He had to have been the one who bandaged her wounds—it was the only logical explanation—but she didn't understand _why _he would do something like that. She'd just blown up his life's work and effectively ruined his life. It didn't make sense to her that he would go out of his way and actually take care of her like that.

She bent down to pick up her backpack again and noticed her phone lying on the bottom of it. _He didn't break it? _she thought, furrowing her brow. With her phone, she could easily ask for back up. It wouldn't take more than a simple text message. She looked at Hope again. He was staring out the window, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. _I don't need help, _she decided. _I haven't failed the mission yet. _She quickly typed out a short message saying that her microphone broke in the explosion and that the mission would take a little longer than planned. After thinking about it for a moment, she added that Hope had already sent his blueprints to Valhalla Corporation and that she would make sure to collect all the copies. She sent the message to the number she'd received her orders from.

"Hey, could I get a gun or something?" Hope suddenly asked, turning around in the front seat.

Lightning quickly dropped the phone into her backpack. "No."

"Why not? If something happens to you, I still want to be able to defend myself."

"Nothing's going to happen to me. And no. I don't want you to shoot anyone."

Hope gave her an offended look. "I've held a gun before, you know. I'm not going to shoot a bystander or anything."

"I said no," she snapped. "You're not shooting _anyone. _You're not a killer, and you're not becoming one either. Come on, let's go. We don't have all night."

She got out of the trunk through the back door, slamming it shut behind her. Hope hurried after her.

"I'm sorry if I made you upset," he quickly said. "I just—"

"Stop talking."

He gave her a look that reminded her of a sad puppy.

"Stop looking at me like that," she snapped. "I'm not upset. God, you've got to be the least terrorist-like person I've ever met."

His puppy-dog look changed into a bright smile. "I'm going to take that as a compliment."

She shook her head, forcing herself not to smile back. "Don't."

Hope suddenly pulled out his phone from his pocket. He stared at the screen, frowning.

"There are people in my house again," he said. "There are eight of them now. No, wait, there's a ninth one. They're—"

"Give me that," Lightning interrupted, snatching the phone from his hands. She looked at the footage showing on the screen. Nine men were running across the garden, looking about as untrained as the ones that had ambushed them earlier. _They never even had a chance. _The thought made her nausea return at full strength. She'd slaughtered those men. They'd expected a helpless scientist, but instead they'd found a well-trained, merciless soldier. _Did they have families? _she wondered. _Did I kill someone's father? _

She quickly pushed the thoughts away and threw Hope's phone into the wall of a nearby building.

"Hey!" he exclaimed. He came to a stop on the sidewalk, staring at the shattered pieces of plastic and glass that used to be his phone.

Lightning grabbed his arm, forcing him to continue walking. "Valhalla Corporation is still sending out morons, but when they find out what happened to their friends, they're going to step up their game. They will definitely try and track your phone." She glanced at him. "Was there anyone you wanted to call?"

Hope looked down on the ground. "No. No one."

She opened her mouth and then closed it again, unsure what to say. _At least I'm not that lonely, _she thought. _I'm a fuck-up, but at least I'm not completely alone in the world. _

They walked the rest of the way in silence. Lightning absentmindedly touched the cuff on her wrist. She'd considered breaking a bone or two in her thumb to get it off, but she wasn't sure if it would actually work. The silvery material felt like it had been molded to her skin. She hadn't even found the opening mechanism. _Twenty_-_four hours, _she thought, shuddering. The electric shock the cuff had given her had been excruciating. She couldn't even imagine what an even stronger shock would feel like. _How could someone like him invent something so awful? _

"We're here," Hope said, pulling her out of her thoughts.

They came to a stop in front of an ordinary-looking tower block. Lightning walked up to the automatic glass doors. Unsurprisingly, they remained closed.

"You need a keycard," Hope said, pulling out a small, laminated card from his wallet. He took a step towards the card reader on the wall, but then he stopped. "Wait . . . I can't use this, can I? If I swipe my card, they'll know where we are." He ran his fingers through his hair. "Shit."

Lightning blinked in surprise. "You're learning. Good."

She took a step back, scanning the building for possible entryways. The walls were made of steel and glass, and there were no ordinary doors on the ground floor. Her gaze continued upwards. On the fifth floor, she found an open window. She thought about it for a moment. _Yeah, _she decided, _I could get up there. _

"I'll be right back," she told Hope before taking off. She grabbed the drainpipe on the wall and began to climb.

"Hey!" Hope yelled after her. "You're just going to leave me here? Hey! Come back here!"

"Is it too much to ask for you to stay alive on your own for five freaking minutes?" she yelled back. "Just wait down there and I'll come down and open the door for you. Don't do anything stupid."

* * *

Hope watched as Lightning climbed through the open window and entered the building. His heart was pounding in his chest. _Is she insane? _he wondered. If she had lost her grip for even a second, she would have fallen to her death. He didn't know how much strength a person needed to climb up a drainpipe like that, but he was certain it was a lot. _Is she even human? _

He leaned against the wall, his eyes scanning the surroundings for possible threats. He'd never been afraid of the dark before, but now, the dim-lit streets made him nervous. He knew what was out there, now. He knew what some people were capable of.

When someone suddenly knocked on the glass door from the inside, his heart nearly stopped. He turned around and found the janitor waving happily from the other side of the glass.

"Should I?" he mimed, pointing at the door. Hope nodded, and the janitor quickly pressed a button on the wall to open the doors from the inside.

"Thanks," Hope said as he stepped inside the building. "I . . . I forgot my keycard. I'm here to, er . . ."

"To work, yes, of course," the janitor filled in. "This isn't the first time I see you in here around this time of night, you know. Typing at your computer, running between your office and the printer, having way too many cups of coffee—you never seem to relax. 'Does that poor scientist guy ever sleep?' I ask myself." He tilted his head to the side. "Do you ever sleep?"

"Yeah." Hope smiled. "Just not during the night. So much to do, so little time."

"I know, I know." The janitor grabbed his cleaning trolley with a sigh. "So many floors, so little time. Good luck, Mr. Estheim. Don't forget to sleep every once in a while." He gave Hope a final wave before walking away, the squeaking sound of the trolley echoing against the walls of the empty lobby. The moment the janitor disappeared around the corner, Lightning rushed into the room through the door that led to the stairwell. Her cheeks were flushed, and she looked slightly out of breath. She stopped in her tracks when she saw him.

"What did you do?" she asked in a tired voice.

"I didn't do anything," he replied.

She groaned. "What did you do, Hope?"

"The janitor let me in. I didn't mess anything up, I promise."

She shook her head. "You better be damn sure that janitor doesn't tell anyone about us being here." She sighed. "You're a walking disaster, you know that? I was gone for two minutes! Why couldn't you just wait for me outside like I told you to? For fuck's sake, Hope, I don't have time to babysit you." She turned around to walk back towards the elevators, but Hope stopped her by grabbing her wrist.

"Do _not _treat me like a child," he said in a low voice. "I've got one of the highest IQs in the world. My inventions are used by the CIA, the FBI, the MI6—hell, some of them are even used at the _Pentagon. _I'm a _genius, _Light." He pulled her closer, his grip around her wrist tightening. "I'm not stupid, and I'm not a kid. I'm not going to just stand here and let you treat me like I'm beneath you."

Lightning stared up at him, her eyes widening in surprise. Her pupils were dilated, and her blush had deepened in color. _She's pretty, _Hope realized. Her eyes were bluer than the sky, and her lips looked impossibly soft. He suddenly wondered what it would feel like to touch them.

As if she could read his thought, she quickly jerked her wrist out of his grip. "Get your hands off me."

Hope wasn't sure whether to get offended by her tone of voice or to apologize, so instead, he simply walked past her and continued towards the elevators.

"The CEO's office is on the eighth floor," he said. "If he's planning to use my blueprints to build a bomb, there should be proof for it up there."

They entered the elevator in silence. Lightning refused to even look at him.

"I still don't think Mr. Ballad would do something like that," he continued to break the uncomfortable silence. "He showed me his plans for my reactor, and he's always shown a lot of interest in using nuclear fusion as an energy source. The CIA was wrong about me—isn't it possible that they were wrong about him, too?"

She shrugged. "People lie. You thought _I_ was interested in nuclear fusion back at the hotel, remember? You're not that hard to deceive when it comes to fusion."

He felt his earlobes turn red, and this time it was he who couldn't bring himself to look at her. She was right—she'd had him completely fooled. _Did Caius trick me too? _he wondered. _Am I really that gullible? _

They left the elevator and stepped into the staff quarters on the eighth floor. Hope rarely visited that floor and was always somewhat taken back by the fancy furniture and the parquet floor. Caius was a man who enjoyed old-fashioned elegance. He also had a thing against modern technology, including severe trust issues when it came to things like emails and text messages. Hope had never had an employer who preferred faxes over emails before, but he respected Caius' wishes.

They walked through the staff quarters and entered the corridor that would take them to Caius' office. Hope had a bad feeling in his gut, and it only seemed to get worse the closer they got to the end of the corridor. A part of him _knew. _A part of him had always known that Caius' promises were too good to be true. After almost two full years of rejection after rejection, Valhalla Corporation's offer had seemed like a dream come true. _I should have known, _he thought bitterly. _I should have taken more precautions. _If Valhalla Corporation really was planning to use his blueprints to build a bomb, it was his job to stop them. It was his responsibility.

The door to Caius' office was locked. Lightning took a step back, and before Hope could stop her she'd already given the door a hard kick.

"Stop it," he hissed. "If you open the door by force, you're going to trigger the alarm. Let me take a look at the lock. I could probably—"

She kicked the door again, and this time it splintered and came loose. It fell to the floor with a loud crash. The alarm went off moments later, piercing the silence of the empty corridor.

"Oh, great," Hope groaned. "We're screwed."

"According to the file, it's going to take at least ten minutes for the security guards to get here. We'll just have to be out of here before they arrive. No problem."

"And how the hell are we supposed to find anything in less than ten minutes?" he sighed. "First the bomb, and now this. Margins aren't really your thing, are they?"

She shrugged and gave him a small smile. "Are you gonna stand there and whine all day? Get to work, Hope. Just keep your eyes front and focus. I'll watch the rear."

Hope blinked. Her smile had caught him completely off guard. She looked a lot younger when she smiled. Less dangerous. _And pretty, _he thought._ Really, really pretty._

He shook his head and walked past her into the office, taking a seat in front of Caius' computer. _Crack a computer and find top secret information in less than ten minutes? _he thought to himself, a confident grin playing on his lips. _Challenge accepted. _


	4. Chapter 4

**Warnings: Mentions of rape and suicide**

Lightning looked around the room as Hope worked with Caius Ballad's computer. The office was just as fancy and old-fashioned as the rest of the floor. _How old is this guy? s_he wondered, letting her hand wander over the spines of the books in the mahogany bookcases. Every piece of furniture in the room looked like it was at least half a century old.

"Damn it," Hope muttered from the desk. "I need a password."

"Have you tried his date of birth?"

"Not yet." He typed something on the keyboard. "Nope, wrong password."

Lightning walked over to his side. "Is he married?"

"No."

"Kids?"

"Nope."

"Siblings?"

Hope furrowed his brow. "He had a foster sister once. I think her name was Yeul. She's dead now, though."

Lightning pushed his hands away from the keyboard and entered the foster sister's name. The computer played a happy little melody and gave them access to Caius' account.

"Alright." Hope looked up at her. "How much time do I have?"

She glanced at her wristwatch. "Eight and a half minutes."

He nodded and opened up the command prompt. "I think I can make it."

"You better."

She continued to look around the room. There was something strange about it but she couldn't put her finger on it. Something about the furnishing just didn't seem right.

"I can't believe this!" Hope suddenly exclaimed. "There's literally nothing in here. _Nothing. _Damn that technophobic bastard." He sighed. "He told me to send my blueprints to his personal fax machine, so I guess he keeps a lot of important information at home. If we want to find proof, we're going to have to sneak into his house. He's got a lot of security, but I'm sure you could pull it off." He paused for a moment. "Light, what are you looking at?"

Lightning took a step towards the area between two of the bookcases. All the other walls had paintings on them, but the wall in front of her was completely bare. She tilted her head to the side. Her feelings of wrongness were definitely coming from the gap between the bookcases. She grabbed one of the bookcases and tried to pull it to the side. It didn't move. She did the same with the other bookcase, and this time, it actually worked. The bookcase moved out of the way, and behind it, a door appeared.

"Wow," Hope said, getting up from the computer. "How the hell did you find that?"

She shrugged and tried to open the door. It was locked, but thankfully, it was the kind of lock she could easily pick in her sleep. She pulled out her lock picks from her backpack, and seconds later, the door was unlocked.

"So that's how you managed to get into my basement," Hope commented.

She shrugged again. "You should have used a better lock."

They walked through the door. She ran her hand along the wall until she found the lamp switch.

Hope snorted. "So it's my fault, is that what you're saying? Way to blame the victim . . ." He fell silent as the lamp lit up the small room.

"Is this proof enough?" she asked, hoping she didn't sound as shocked as she actually felt. The room did not speak well of Caius Ballad's level of sanity. There were newspaper clippings all over the walls, overlapping one another like a wallpaper of madness. They all seemed to cover the same story.

"Court frees rapist, victim commits suicide," Hope mumbled, reading one of the headlines out loud. "I remember this. A high school senior was raped, but when she tried to get the guy convicted, the whole school turned against her. Students, parents, teachers, _everyone. _When the Supreme Court freed the guy of all charges, the girl killed herself." He swallowed hard. "I had no idea. I knew his foster sister died a couple of years ago, but . . . I had no idea about _this_."

Lightning walked up to a different part of the wall, where a map over Washington D.C. had been pinned to the wall. Circles of different sizes covered the city, the biggest one covering almost the entire map.

"Does this mean what I think it means?" she asked Hope.

He walked up to her side. "Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit."

"I'm going to take that as a yes."

"A bomb like this would level the inner city to the ground, and the rest of Washington D.C. would be nothing but ruins." His face went pale, and he looked like he was about to throw up. "Millions of innocents would die. The bomb would take out the Supreme Court, the CIA, the Pentagon, the White House . . . this whole country would collapse. Why? Why would he do this?"

"I think this is the reason." Lightning pointed at a photograph nailed to the door, picturing a tall, purple-haired man and a petite, blue-haired girl. Right beneath the photo, someone—Caius, most likely—had left a message with a marker pen.

_They will pay for what they did._

"Revenge? He's doing all of this for revenge?" Hope ran his fingers through his hair. "He's not just blowing up the Supreme Court or anything, no, he's seriously planning to _nuke an entire city_. He's insane. He's actually insane."

"Some people handle grief better than others." She looked at the man in the photograph. He was smiling widely, like he didn't have a single care in the world. "Sometimes, you just want to watch others suffer the way your loved one did. You want justice."

He stared at her. "Killing millions of innocents isn't justice. It's mass murder."

She nodded. "Which is why we have to get those blueprints back. Are you sure they're at his place? He might have already forwarded them to his physicists."

"I don't think so. He hasn't been at work since Monday, and he's not the kind of guy who works at home. Besides, he's holding this big, fancy masquerade party tomorrow night. He's probably pretty preoccupied." He blinked. "Hey, isn't that a pretty good opening for us? It can't be too hard to sneak around in his home if we're wearing masks at a masquerade party, right?"

Lightning considered it for a moment. "It could work. We can't underestimate him, though. He might be preoccupied, but he still gave the order to have you killed less than a day after receiving the blueprints."

"Yeah." Hope lowered his eyes. "I can't believe he would do something like this. I knew there was something weird going on with Valhalla Corporation, but I never thought . . . not like this." He glanced at her. "I get why the CIA thinks I'm a terrorist, now. I still don't want to die, but . . . I guess I can't blame them for wanting me dead anymore."

Lightning looked at him. His eyes were still fixed on the parquet floor, and he almost looked like he was about to cry. She wasn't sure why, but a part of her wanted to comfort him. _I won't be able to kill him, _she suddenly realized. She wasn't sure exactly when it had happened, but somewhere along the way she'd begun to see him as a person instead of just a target. Executing him in cold blood simply wasn't an option anymore. _I'm going to get fired again, _she thought with a sigh. She'd thought she wanted to keep the job no matter the cost, but that didn't seem to be the case anymore. Befriending a target was a rookie mistake, but it was too late to change that now. Killing Hope was a price she was no longer willing to pay.

She glanced at her wristwatch. "In two minutes, this place is going to be crawling with security guards. We need to get out of here." She patted him on the back. "We'll get those blueprints back. Don't worry."

Hope nodded, but he still wouldn't look up from the ground. "And then you'll kill me. That's how it's got to be, right? I have nowhere to run. The CIA is going to find me eventually. I'm screwed."

Lightning began to walk towards the elevator. "I have a friend who can make people disappear. She'll make sure you get out of the country safely."

She could hear him hurry after her. "But what about your mission?"

"Fuck the mission. I don't care if they fire me. I'm not killing more innocents."

She came to a stop when Hope suddenly wrapped his arms around her. Her body automatically flinched, but she managed to stop herself from throwing him over her shoulder or punching him in the face.

"Thank you, Light," he said in a low voice. "Thank you so much."

Lightning's heart began to race. Her back was pressed against his chest, and his lips were only an inch away from her ear. She wasn't sure why, but she suddenly found it hard to think coherent thoughts.

"I'm sorry for hurting you," he murmured. "I promise I'll remove the cuff before the time runs out."

Lightning's mind immediately cleared up. "You're still not removing the cuff?" She laughed humorlessly. "I'm giving up my whole career for you, and you still won't give me the benefit of the doubt?"

Hope fell silent. Lightning took a step away from him, forcing him to release her. She turned around, and he quickly avoided her gaze. _At least he has the decency to be ashamed of himself, _she thought with a sigh.

She looked at him from head to toe, scanning his strengths and weaknesses. He was a slender man without any muscularity to speak of. His skin was pale, and the dark circles under his eyes told her how exhausted and overworked he was. He'd said he'd held a gun before, but she was certain he'd never pointed it at another human being before. It didn't really matter how smart he thought he was or how successful he used to be—as of this moment, he was completely defenseless. Forcing her to protect him really was his only way of survival. She sighed again. _What would I have done in his situation? _

"I don't like it but I get it," she said out loud. "I can't really blame you for it either. I would have done the same thing." She glanced down at her left arm, where the cuff was hidden beneath her leather jacket. "It's not dangerous or anything as long as you don't press that button, right?"

"Until the time runs out, it's completely harmless."

She nodded. "Okay, then. Here's what we're going to do. We make sure you've got everything you need to disappear, we get the blueprints from your boss, you remove the cuff and then we go our separate ways." She reached out her hand. "Deal?"

He gave her a surprised smile and shook her hand. "Deal."

She tightened her grip on his hand. "And you're never, _ever _tasering me again. Do you understand?"

He nodded frenetically. "I understand. Please let go of my hand."

"Good." She released him, and Hope immediately pulled his hand away from her. She smirked. "Come on. We've got things to do."

* * *

About twenty seconds after they had left the building, the security guards arrived. Hope watched as they swarmed the ground floor, his feelings of guilt intensifying. The janitor would without a doubt be the one who got the blame for their little break-in.

"We need to get back to the van," Lightning said, walking away from the building without looking back. "Let's go."

Hope followed in her tracks. He wasn't sure how it was possible, but her walking pace always forced him to half-jog to keep up. Considering their height difference, _he_ should be the one with the longer stride length.

When he'd hugged her, he'd noticed that he was actually several inches taller than her. The revelation had surprised him a little. When she'd taken on the men in his basement, she'd seemed bigger. More frightening. In his arms, she'd seemed a lot smaller. Softer. For a moment, she'd almost seemed vulnerable. _Don't be stupid, _he thought to himself, shaking his head. _That woman is anything but vulnerable._

"Who's that friend you were talking about?" he asked her as they entered the van, slightly out of breath from the walk. "What exactly does 'making people disappear' mean?"

"She erases them from the system," she replied. "I don't know how she does it, but she's good. _Really _good. She can make it look like a person never even existed in the first place."

"Okay." He glanced at her. "How did you get to know a person like that? I mean, you're a CIA agent. Isn't identity fraud a serious crime?"

Her body tensed up. "That's none of your business."

Hope rolled his eyes but didn't push her any further. Her reaction told him that there was something personal about that story—something she definitely wouldn't tell him about.

About twenty minutes later, Lightning parked the van in an empty parking garage.

"I need to check your file again," she said, holding out her hand.

Hope opened the glove compartment and handed her the folder that covered his entire life. When he'd made sure that Lightning was completely concentrated on the file, he decided to give the glove compartment a closer look. After looting through heaps of candy wrappers, he found a photograph. He carefully pulled it out in the open. The photo pictured two pink-haired girls, standing side by side on a beach. Judging by their similarity, they had to be sisters. The older one was frowning at the photographer while the younger smiled brightly, holding on to her sister's hand. Hope gave the older girl a closer look and then glanced at Lightning. _Yeah, _he thought, _I recognize that frown. _Smiling a little to himself, he turned the photograph over.

_July 2005: Serah and Claire, 8 and 11 years old, _someone had written on the backside of the photograph.

"How old are you?" he asked Lightning.

"Twenty-four," she answered without looking up from the file. "Why?"

"Just wondering."

Hope looked at the photograph again. He could have sworn the older sister was Lightning, but the age didn't fit. _I guess they're both her younger sisters._

"Fang is going to have to go really deep to make you disappear," Lightning sighed. "And you're going to have to dye your hair or something. After winning all those awards, there are going to be science nerds who recognize you wherever you . . ." She stopped as she noticed what he was looking at. Her eyes widened. "Where did you get that? Give me that!"

She snatched the photo from his hands and quickly hid it in her pocket. Hope couldn't completely decipher the look on her face, but it looked like a combination of embarrassment and fury.

"Are those girls your sisters?" he asked carefully.

"That's none of your business," she snapped. "My personal belongings are none of your business. My _life _is none of your business. Do you understand?"

He sighed. "Is it really that strange that I want to get to know you? You saved my life, and now you're giving up your job for me. You know literally everything there is to know about me, while I know nothing about you. We're stuck together until we've found those blueprints. Would it really be so awful to let me get to know you a little?"

"I'm agent Lightning Farron, former sergeant of the U.S. Army. That's all you need to know about me." She lowered her eyes. "That's all there is to know about me."

Before Hope could say anything, she'd already left the van. He hurried after her but didn't say anything. She had a familiar look in her eyes—the look of someone who knew they would never be good enough. He recognized it, because it was the look he always saw in his own eyes every time he looked himself in the mirror. He wanted to comfort her, but he didn't know what to say. She was still a complete stranger to him. He had no idea what a woman like her could possibly feel insecure about.

They entered a staircase and descended several flights of stairs.

"Is your friend expecting you?" Hope asked as they walked through a chilly corridor in the basement. "It's four in the morning. Most people would already be asleep by now."

They came to a stop outside a thick door with a sign hanging over it. _Pulse, _Hope thought as he read it. _I've never even heard of this place._

"She's not most people," Lightning replied before knocking on the door. The sound echoed between the bare stone walls. "She's . . . special."

The door opened and a young woman with red pigtails stuck out her head.

"Hello, and welcome to Pulse!" she chirped, smiling brightly. "What can I . . . hey!" She gasped in surprise when she noticed Lightning, her eyes filling up with tears. "Lightning! You're back!" She threw her arms around Lightning's shoulders, hugging her tightly. "We thought . . . we were afraid you were never coming home."

"Hi, Vanille. It's been a long time." Lightning patted her awkwardly on the back. "I've been home for one and a half years, actually. I'm sorry, I should have called."

Vanille took a step back, pouting her lips. "Yes, you really should have. Do you have any idea how worried we were?"

Lightning crossed her arms, avoiding the red-head's eyes. "I'm sorry. I just . . . I was preoccupied. I'm sorry."

Vanille sighed and patted her on the shoulder. "I'm just happy you're okay."

"Hey, Vanille, what's taking so long?" asked a deep alto with a thick Australian accent.

"It's Light!" Vanille replied. "Light is back!"

She left the door wide open and took a step back, motioning for them to come inside. Lightning stepped through the door, and Hope quickly followed her. He wasn't used to being completely ignored like that, and he was afraid the young woman would close the door in his face if he didn't keep up.

They entered a room that looked like an unusually small lobby. A worn-out couch and two armchairs took up about one half of the room, and a tall, wooden counter took up the rest. A tall woman with wild hair and bronze-colored skin stood behind the counter, eying them curiously. _That has to be Fang, _Hope thought. It surprised him a little how young she was. When he'd heard Lightning talk about her and her skills, he'd expected someone older. This woman looked like she was about the same age as Lightning.

"It sure is nice to see you again, sunshine," Fang said, smiling warmly at Lightning. "Who's the guy?"

"His name is Hope," Lightning answered. "Valhalla Corporation and the CIA want him dead. He needs to disappear."

Fang raised her eyebrows. "Who's paying?"

"He is."

Fang grinned. "That's my girl." She gracefully jumped over the counter and approached them, discreetly putting her blue sari back in place. "I'm Fang. Nice to meet you."

She reached out her hand and Hope shook it. "I'm Hope. Nice to meet you too."

Fang threw her head back and laughed heartily. "You won't say that when you've seen my price list, love. Come on. Let's go and delete you from the world."

She grabbed his arm and began to pull him towards a door behind the counter. He nervously glanced back at Lightning over his shoulder. She only gave him a thumbs up.

"I hope you're ready to start your life over from scratch," Fang said. "There's not going to be a single thing left on your record after I'm done with you. Education, jobs, experiences, I'm deleting all of it. Are you ready for that?"

"Not really," he replied, "but I don't think I have a choice. Losing everything is better than getting killed."

She grinned and patted him hard on the back. "I like the attitude. Alright, let's get this thing started. We have a long night ahead of us."

She walked through the door without waiting for an answer. Hope stopped right outside and took a deep breath. It was strange, knowing that everything about him was about to be erased. What was even stranger was that the thought didn't really bother him all that much. Deleting his past meant that he'd most likely never introduce inertial confinement fusion to the modern world, and it meant that he'd most likely never receive that Nobel prize. He'd be an ordinary person with an ordinary job and an ordinary life—and it didn't sound all that bad. _No more pressure, _he thought. _No more impossible expectations._

He smiled to himself as he walked through the door. _Starting over from scratch might not be such a bad thing after all. _

**A/N: I hesitated a really long time before giving Caius (and Yeul) this kind of backstory, since I know it's a really sensitive topic for a lot of people. In the end I chose to go with it anyway, because I think the only way for Caius to become a person who feels no remorse about killing innocents in an AU like this is to make something unforgivable happen to Yeul while the rest of the world just stands idly by. For me, rape is probably the most unforgivable thing you can do to another person. Every time I see the rest of the world blame the victim, I kind of feel like going on a rampage of mass destruction too. That's why I chose to write their backstory like this. **

**A big thanks to all of you who leave reviews. It's really encouraging. **

**Love,  
Cecilia**


	5. Chapter 5

"So what happened?" Vanille asked. "You said you'd be gone for at least a year when you left. That was two years ago. You can't have been gone for more than six months." She tilted her head to the side. "Did you change your mind?"

"I was honorably discharged," Lightning replied. "One of my missions went . . ." _The hot desert sun. The sound of screaming children. The smell of burning bodies. _". . _. wrong. _Really, really wrong." She swallowed hard. "I lost my whole team. After that, they just sent me home."

Vanille got up from her armchair and sat down next to her on the couch instead. She didn't say anything, but her body language showed that if Lightning wanted to talk, she would listen to anything she had to say. Lightning smiled. Somehow, Vanille always knew exactly what to do to comfort the people around her.

"When I got home, I bounced between jobs for a while before a friend got me into a CIA training program," she continued. "I'm not sure how it happened, but I'm actually working for the CIA now."

"Wow, that's amazing," Vanille said, her eyes full of childish enthusiasm. "So you're like, an agent now?"

Lightning smiled. "Something like that."

"Wait." A wrinkle formed between Vanille's eyebrows. "I thought you had to be a lot older before you could join the CIA."

Lightning shrugged. "They thought I was twenty-three when they took me in. No one's found out about my real age yet. Fang really did a great job."

She thought back on the day she'd first showed up at Pulse. She had only been fifteen years old back then, and her mother had just passed away. Social services were planning to place both her and Serah in foster care, so she knew she had to do something. After visiting a lot of shady clubs and bars, she finally found a way to trick the authorities into thinking she was eighteen. She found Pulse. The previous owner of the place immediately turned her down since she didn't have enough money, but Fang, who was only a part-time worker back then, decided to help her. She worked her magic and changed Lightning's name and date of birth. Suddenly, every database in the country said that Lightning was eighteen years old, which meant that she could become Serah's legal guardian. Her change of name wasn't exactly a necessity, but it helped her become the grown-up she needed to be to take care of her sister. Her contact at social services was very confused about the sudden change in Lightning's file, but in the end, he had no way of proving that she was only fifteen. He had to let her take care of Serah.

Lightning worked at Pulse for free for six months to pay back what she owed Fang. During those months, Fang became one of her closest friends, and so did her girlfriend Vanille. Lightning was already a bit of a fuck-up back then—a high school drop-out with a tendency to punch people who pissed her off—but the two of them always accepted her and supported her anyway. They helped her raise Serah, even though they were only kids too.

When the original owner of Pulse got caught by the police and went to jail, Fang began to run the place on her own. She was young, but she was a genius of unprecedented caliber when it came to changing identities. It didn't take long before everyone in the underworld of Washington D.C. knew who she was and what she was capable of.

When the six months were over, Lightning enrolled in the military to provide for her and Serah. She never really thought about what would happen if she actually had to serve abroad. If she had known what would happen on her second tour, she never would have joined the army in the first place. But she hadn't known. She hadn't had a single clue about what going to war really meant.

"So who's the guy?" Vanille said, pulling her out of her thoughts. "You said the CIA was after him. You work for the CIA. Why are you helping him? Isn't this whole thing kind of counter-productive?"

Lightning glanced through the window in the door behind the counter. Hope was sitting next to Fang at her desk, staring at the computer screen in deep concentration. _How the hell do I explain how this whole thing happened? _she wondered. The story behind their temporary partnership was simply too weird to be shared.

"It's complicated," she finally said, smiling humorlessly. "Apparently, I'm not that good at being an agent."

Vanille pouted. "Don't say that. I'm sure you're just being too hard on yourself as usual. I for one trust your judgment way more than the CIA's. If you think this guy is worth protecting, I'm sure you're right."

Lightning sighed. "He's a bit of an ass, actually. I don't even know why I'm doing all this for him."

Before Vanille could answer, their conversation was interrupted by a loud noise coming from Fang's office. Lightning looked through the window again and found that Hope was now standing up, gesticulating wildly with his hands.

"Fifty percent?" she heard him yell from the other side of the door. "You expect me to give you fifty percent of all of my savings? Are you insane?"

Fang threw her head back and laughed. After a while, Hope sat down on the chair again with a sullen look on his face. Lightning couldn't help but smile.

"He's an ass," she continued, "but he doesn't deserve to die. He's not a bad person."

Vanille tilted her head to the side. "You like him, don't you?"

"Of course not," Lightning snorted. "I don't even know him."

"Oh, really? Is that why you can't keep your eyes off him?"

Lightning quickly looked away from window in the door, her cheeks heating up. "I just feel responsible for him, that's all."

Vanille leaned back on the cough, smiling smugly. "Suuuure."

* * *

A couple of hours later, Fang was still working on creating Hope's new identity. The clock had already struck six, which meant that Hope had been up for over twenty-four hours. He yawned loudly, leaning back in his chair. He'd only gotten about three or four hours of sleep every night for over a week, and the exhaustion was beginning to take its toll on him.

Fang's office was small and cramped, and the lack of fresh air was starting to give him a headache. Fang had been working non-stop for hours, asking him billions of questions about his life. _By now, she probably knows even more about me than the CIA does, _he thought, unsure how to feel about that.

"_Why _did you have to write this many articles?" Fang groaned, typing frenetically on the keyboard. "And _why _did you have to go and get them all published? This is ridiculous. You, my friend, have a serious problem."

Hope shrugged. "I hate being unoccupied."

"I can tell." She sighed and grabbed the phone on her desk. "I'm going to have to call in a lot of favors to delete all this. Hang on."

Hope leaned back in his chair again. It was the eleventh phone call Fang made that night, and this time, she was speaking in Spanish. She seemed to know at least half a dozen different languages, and he didn't understand much of what she was doing when she worked on the computer either. _How on earth did Light get to know a person like this? _he wondered. Lightning was an agent, and Fang seemed to be some kind of criminal mastermind. Their friendship didn't make sense.

"I have to ask—why are you here?" Fang asked when she'd hung up the phone. "Your background data is picture perfect. What the hell did you do to get the CIA to come after you?"

Hope scratched the back of his head. "I accidentally invented a nuclear bomb."

At first, Fang just stared at him. Then, she started laughing at the top of her lungs. Hope felt somewhat offended.

"_Accidentally _invented a nuclear bomb," she wheezed. "I was wondering why Light was hanging out with a guy like you. Now it makes sense. You're a fuck-up too."

Hope couldn't help but smile. "I guess I am." He hesitated for a moment. "Hey, about you and Light . . . how do you guys know each other?"

Fang grinned. "How old does she say she is?"

"What?" He furrowed his brow, slightly taken back by the counter-question. "She told me she's twenty-four."

Her grin widened. "And that would be thanks to me. I still don't know how a fifteen year-old managed to find this place, but somehow, that girl did. She wanted me to add a couple of years to her real age. Had to grow up fast to take care of her sister, she said. I made it happen. On paper, she's twenty-four, but chronologically, she's only twenty-one."

_So it was her in the photograph, _Hope thought. He looked over at the couch through the window in the door. Lightning seemed to have fallen asleep. Her face looked peaceful, and she definitely didn't look a day older than twenty-one. _I should have known she wasn't twenty-four. _

"Hey, how's she doing nowadays?" Fang asked, her tone of voice suddenly turning serious. "Is she . . . is she okay? Sometimes, I wonder if changing her age was the right thing to do for her. She went to Afghanistan at the age of sixteen, you know. I tried to stop her, but you know how she is." She sighed. "She was only supposed to go there once. I was so happy when she came home, thinking that things were finally going back to normal again. Then, Serah's accident happened, and she immediately volunteers to go on a second tour. I get that she wanted a distraction. I just wish she'd chosen something less dangerous than going to war." She glanced at Lightning through the window. "I don't know. She just looks . . . different, now. She changed after her first tour too, but not like this. Did something happen over there?"

"I . . . I don't know." Hope didn't know what to say. He knew that Fang had just shared secrets with him that he wasn't really authorized to hear—but he still wanted to know more. _She went to war when she was sixteen, _he thought. _She was just a kid. _He thought back on everything Lightning had said and done during the night. In the van, he'd told Lightning that he didn't know anything about her, but now he realized that it wasn't actually true. She hadn't willingly shared anything with him, but he'd still begun to get to know her.

"She hasn't told me anything," he continued, "but I think she's got some kind of survivor's guilt. I think she had to do things over there that she still can't forgive herself for."

Fang looked at him and nodded. "That sounds like our Lightning alright. That girl was always too hard on herself." She turned off the computer and stood up. "I'm done here. Congratulations. Hope Estheim no longer exists. Vanille will give you your new I.D. and the cash from the assets we managed to liquidate."

Hope got up from his chair and held out his hand. "Thank you."

She shook it and grinned. "Thank _you_. I haven't been this rich in years."

He shook his head and turned around, heading towards the door. Before he could open it, Fang stopped him by putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Take care of her, would ya?" she said, once again turning serious.

"I'm not sure I'm qualified for that," he said jokingly. "She's the last person on the planet who'd need someone to take care of her."

Fang didn't smile back. "That's what she thinks too, and you're both wrong. She's never thought highly of herself, and from the look in her eyes, that second tour only made things worse. If that doesn't change . . ." She clenched her jaw. ". . . if that doesn't change, she's not going to survive for long. Someone needs to remind her that her life matters too, because if she doesn't realize it, she's going to end up doing something so stupid it actually costs her life."

"And you think that someone is me?"

She fixed her eyes on the wall and shrugged. "I don't know. All I know is that that someone is not me. She doesn't listen to me like that. There's something in her eyes when she looks at you, something I haven't seen before. At least promise me you'll try, okay?"

Hope nodded, feeling strangely moved by Fang's confession. "I'll try. I promise."

"Good." She patted him hard on the back. "Now get your ass out of here. Vanille and I need to sleep."

Hope left the small office and carefully closed the door behind him. He had a feeling that Lightning needed all the sleep she could get, and he didn't want to wake her up.

"Hello, John Smith!" Vanille yelled from the couch the moment she noticed him, completely ruining his attempt to keep quiet. Lightning immediately opened her eyes, looking slightly disoriented for a moment before regaining her usual, calm composure.

Vanille got up from the couch and handed him a passport and a thick envelope. "Happy birthday!"

He frowned. "My birthday is in January."

She winked. "Not anymore."

Hope opened the passport and found that Vanille was right. His date of birth had been changed, and his name really was John Smith now.

"John Smith," he said to himself. "My name is John Smith." It surprised him how wrong the words felt in his mouth. _I guess your name is one of those things you don't miss until you lose them, _he thought. He'd never been particularly proud of the Estheim family name—at least not as proud as his father had wanted him to be—but he didn't really enjoy being a Smith either. It just didn't feel right.

"You'll get used to it," Lightning said, as if she could read his thoughts. "It gets easier over time."

She was standing right next to him, looking at the passport in his hand. Her hair was still a little messed up from her nap. Hope wasn't sure why, but he found it kind of cute.

"Hey, Light." They both turned around and found Fang leaning against the counter behind them. "Call me, would ya? We really need to catch up. It's been one and a half years since I drank you under the table and that's just unacceptable."

Lightning smiled. "I'll call. I promise."

When Hope and Lightning left Pulse, the clock had already struck seven. The sun was up, and Hope was already starting to feel a little bit more awake. He glanced at Lightning as they walked through the parking garage. Sunlight always made him feel less tired after an all-nighter, but it didn't seem to do the same to her. Her skin was pale, and her eyes looked slightly unfocused.

"Hey, Light," he said when they reached the van. "I think we need to get some sleep."

She gave him an offended look. "I can keep going."

"Yeah, but I can't," he lied. He was tired, yes, but he'd been tired before. It was all that uncommon for him to go two or three full days without sleep. Lightning, on the other hand, looked exhausted. She needed to sleep, and he knew her well enough by then to know that she'd never take a break for her own sake.

"I'm just a civilian," he continued. "I'm not used to your tempo. I need to rest."

She considered it for a moment, and then she nodded. "We can rest at my place. We've got some free hours until that masquerade party starts anyway. I guess we could use them to get some sleep."

_She's taking me to her place? _he thought, strangely excited by the thought. He still wanted to get to know her, and seeing her home would most likely give him several new clues to what kind of person she really was. Then, he remembered the situation and that Lightning was, in fact, a CIA agent. The CIA still wanted him dead. Going into one of their employees' home was probably not the best of ideas.

"Is it really safe for me to be at your place?" he asked her. "What if someone from the CIA sees me? What if they see _you_? Won't they think you're betraying them?"

She gave him a soft smile. "Don't worry. You'll be fine. I'll protect you."

Fang's words echoed in the back of his mind. _Someone needs to remind her that her life matters too. _Before he could stop himself, he'd taken Lightning's hand in his.

"I—me too. I mean, at least I'll try. I'll try to watch out for you, too."

At first, she looked down on their entwined hands, and then she stared up at him with a strange look on her face. She looked a little frightened and her eyes were full of disbelief, but there was something else hiding in that look, too. Something that almost looked like hope.

A couple of seconds passed without any of them saying anything. Then, she quickly pulled her hand out of his and used it to flick him hard on the forehead.

"Thank you," she muttered before quickly entering the van. Hope waited outside for a moment, rubbing his aching forehead. It hurt more than he wanted to admit, but he still couldn't help but grin. _I made her blush. _

When he joined her in the van, her cheeks were still tinged with a faint shade of pink. He thought back on Fang's words again. _There's something in her eyes when she looks at you, something I haven't seen before. _He wasn't sure what exactly was happening between the two of them, but he knew it was _something. _His future was still unclear, but with her by his side, it didn't seem quite as frightening.

_She'll protect me, _he thought to himself, _and I'll protect her too. _


	6. Chapter 6

"Where did she learn how to do that?" Hope asked. "I mean, she's a technical genius. Did she graduate from college early, or...?"

Lightning snorted, her eyes still fixed on the road. "She's not a technical genius. She's a decent hacker, but trust me, if her printer stops working, her idea of fixing it would be to punch it."

He glanced down at his new passport. "Then how did she pull this off?"

"She knows the right kind of people." She smiled a little to herself. "And the right kind of people owes her a lot of favors. She can be pretty scary when she wants to."

Hope didn't doubt that at all. He continued to stare at the passport in his hand. _How did this happen? _he wondered. _What am I supposed to do now? _Even though he was strangely okay with the thought of starting over, he was still uncertain about the details. Where would he live? How would he make a living? He glanced at Lightning. By helping him, she was literally doing the exact opposite of what her superiors had told her to do. _What's going to happen to her?_

A couple of minutes later, Lightning parked the van right outside an apartment complex. The building was three stories high and looked like it was about to fall apart. The yellow paint on the walls was chipped and cracked, and he could see at least three broken windows. _Does she seriously live here? _he wondered—and then he felt guilty for being such a snob. Growing up in a wealthy family had left its marks on him, and even though he tried to repress that part of him as much as possible, it still affected his perspective on things.

"It's just temporary," Lightning said, as if she could read his thoughts. "Okay, so this is how things are going to work. You're going to stay with me at all times, and you're not going to touch anything." She glared at him. "I mean it. Don't touch _anything_."

"I won't," he replied, looking at her in amusement. "You're already regretting this, aren't you?"

Lightning muttered something under her breath and left the van, slamming the door shut behind her. Hope put the passport back in his wallet and hurried after her.

"I won't touch anything, I promise," he shouted after her with a grin. "Your personal integrity is safe with me."

She turned around and glared at him again. "If you want to keep breathing, you better shut up _right now._" It was an empty threat and they both knew it. Lightning shook her head and sighed before punching in a code on the keypad on the wall. "I'm just not used to having people over, that's all."

They entered the building and almost walked straight into a blond man in a wheelchair. His cheeks were covered in blond stubble, and his upper body looked freakishly muscular. Hope didn't doubt for a second that this man could beat him up without ever leaving the wheelchair. Luckily, he looked about as threatening as a golden retriever puppy.

"Hey, sis!" he said, grinning widely. "What's up?"

Lightning did not return his smile. "I'm not your sister," she snapped before pushing past him, heading towards the stairs. "You lost your right to call me that a long time ago."

"Oh, come on!" the man yelled after her. "I know you hate me, but we're still family."

"Like hell we are," she yelled back.

Hope ran after her up the stairs, trying his best to keep up with her. When they finally reached the top floor, he was embarrassingly out of breath.

"Who was that?" he asked, leaning against the wall to catch his breath. "He seemed nice."

Lightning gave him a glare—the coldest glare she'd ever given him. "He's the reason my sister is dead."

"Oh." He stared at her, having no idea what to say. "I... I'm so sorry. I had no idea. What happened?"

"That's none of your business," she hissed, unsurprisingly. She turned her back and unlocked the door to one of the apartments. Before opening it, she turned around to face him again. Her face looked softer now, and eyes weren't cold at all.

"Sorry, sensitive topic," she said, fidgeting with the keys in her hand. "She died in a motorcycle accident. Snow, her fiancé, lost his legs. Serah lost her life. He's the one who was driving." She clenched her jaw. "She would still be alive today if it wasn't for him, and he still has the nerve to call me his sister. The wrong person died that day and we both know it." She opened the door and held it up for him. "Are you coming?"

"Yeah. I'm... yeah." He followed her into the apartment in silence, still having no idea what to say. _I guess that's a pretty good reason to hate someone, _he thought to himself.

The apartment reminded him of a motel room. It was nicely decorated and all, but it didn't look like a home. The only thing that didn't fit in with the motel image was the carton boxes spread out in different corners all over the apartment.

"It's only temporary," Lightning once again said, dropping her backpack on the hallway floor. "I haven't really had time to unpack."

_She's been home for one and a half years, _Hope recalled, but he didn't say anything.

"The bedroom is over there," she said, pointing at one of the doors. "I'll take the couch."

He frowned. "It's your home. I'll sleep on the couch."

She glared at him. "You're sleeping on the bed. This is not up for discussion."

Hope opened his mouth to continue to argue with her, but before he could say anything, the doorbell rang.

* * *

"Are you expecting visitors?" Hope asked.

"No," Lightning replied, furrowing her brow. She couldn't remember if she'd ever had any unexpected visitors like that before. The only neighbor she ever even talked to was Snow, and since there weren't any elevators in the building, Snow was stuck on the first floor. Quietly, she sneaked up to the door and looked through the door eye. On the other side of the door was a gray-haired man in a suit. She could tell by the look in his eyes that this was a man who knew how to kill.

"Shit," she muttered before turning back to Hope. "I have no idea who that is, but if Valhalla Corporation sent him, they're definitely stepping up their game. That man out there is a pro. You need to hide." She grabbed his arm and dragged him into the bathroom. "Stay here. Be quiet. I'll handle this."

"Hey, wait—"

She closed the door in his face and hoped that he was smart enough to realize that if he tried to help, he would only get in her way. After making sure that the bathroom door remained shut, she carefully approached the front door. She grabbed her M11 from her shoulder holster and uncocked it.

"Miss Farron!" the man shouted from the other side of the door. "There's no need for alarm. I'm your handler."

"Prove it," she yelled back.

He chuckled, and she heard him put something in the mail slot. She quickly raised her gun, but lowered it again when she saw the identification card on her doormat.

"I'm agent Yaag Roosch," the man said. "I'm here to pick up the blueprints to the fusion reactor."

Lightning picked up the ID. _It looks legit, _she thought. She put her gun back in her holster and opened the door.

"I'm sorry about that," she said, slightly embarrassed.

The corner of Yaag's mouth twitched, almost forming a smile. "You can never be too careful. How is the mission going?"

"It's all under control," she said, keeping a calm and hopefully neutral look on her face. "Caius Ballad is throwing a party tonight. My target managed to get away when I destroyed his fusion reactor, but I know he's going to show up at that party. I'll get the copy of the blueprints and finish the mission. I can do this."

"Why do you think he'll show up at that party?" Yaag asked. "He's rich and unattached. The most logical thing for him to do would be to leave the country as soon as possible."

"Because he's a smart guy," she replied. "He must have figured out that someone's after him and his reactor, and as far as he knows, Caius Ballad is the only one who knows that his reactor is finished. He's going to want to get those blueprints back, and the party tonight gives him the perfect opportunity to get into Caius Ballad's house unnoticed. He's going to be there. I just know it."

She carefully examined Yaag's face as she spoke. The explanation wasn't bulletproof, but it was the best one she could come up with in such short notice. She had to convince him to let her stay on the mission. If someone else took over, she wouldn't be able to protect Hope.

"You do that," Yaag said, looking strangely indifferent. "I'm sure you can pull it off. Where are the blueprints?"

She picked up her backpack and pulled out the folder containing Hope's blueprints. "What are you going to do with them?"

"Don't worry about them. That part of your mission is finished." He snatched the folder out of her hands. "Good luck, agent Farron. It was nice meeting you."

Before she could say anything else, her handler had already turned around and left. She stared at her empty hands. The unexpected meeting had left her with a weird feeling in her guts. _Are all handlers like that? _she wondered. Yaag Roosch reminded her of some of her former superiors in the army—men who made impossible decisions in the blink of an eye, sacrificing entire platoons for the greater good. Men like that never seemed to feel regret about anything. She wasn't completely comfortable with handing over the first drafts of a nuclear bomb to a man like that.

"Can I come out now?" Hope yelled from the bathroom.

"Yeah," she replied. "He's gone."

He carefully opened the door, looking left and right before returning to the hallway. "Who was that?"

"My handler, apparently." She pushed past him and took a seat on the couch in the living room. "He took the blueprints."

"I see." He sat down next to her. "Isn't that a good thing? They're safe with him, right?"

"Yeah. I guess." She let out her hair and leaned back, closing her eyes. The weird feeling in her gut just wouldn't go away.

"You could have told him about me," Hope said after a moment of silence. "I heard you. You lied for me. If you had just told him about me, all of this would have been over for you. Why didn't you?"

_Why didn't I? _She had no idea. The thought hadn't even struck her—to lie had seemed like the only option at the time. Her handler would most likely have been able to come up with a way to remove the cuff around her wrist if she'd asked him for help, but she hadn't thought of that either. All she'd been thinking about was keeping Hope safe. _This is starting to look like some kind of Stockholm Syndrome situation._

"I told you I'd get you out of the country," she finally said. "I don't break promises. Besides, you and I are partners now. We need to stick together."

His face lit up in a smile. "I guess you're right."

Something moved in the corner of her eye. Her body reacted instantly. When the projectile burst through the window glass, she was already moving. She grabbed Hope, pulled him up from the couch and threw herself over him, getting them as far away from the window as possible. A wave of heat washed over them before they hit the ground, pushing them even further away from the explosion. When they crashed on the hallway floor, the entire living room was already on fire.

"What the hell just happened?" Hope asked, staring up at her in shock.

"Molotov cocktail," she replied as she rolled off him and got back up on her feet. "Come on. We need to get out of here."

She tried to sound calm, but on the inside, she was close to panicking. _Has Valhalla Corporation found us already? _she thought, running towards the front door. _How? What did I miss?_

When she tried to open the door, she found that it wouldn't budge.

"Those bastards blocked the door," she muttered before giving the door a hard kick. It surprised her when the door still wouldn't move an inch. The door was just a thin slab of cheap wood. She should have been able to easily break through it. _What the hell did they do to it? _she wondered, kicking it again.

"Light," Hope wheezed from behind her. "I don't want to stress you out or anything, but it's getting pretty hard to breathe in here."

"I'm working on it!" she growled back. "This damn door just won't open!"

"Let me give it a shot."

Lightning moved out of the way and watched as Hope threw himself at the door. He sank to the floor with a groan and the door, unsurprisingly, remained shut.

"Right. Physics don't work like in the movies. I should have remembered that." He stood up, leaning heavily against the unmovable door. "We're on the third floor. The door won't open. Oh god." He stared at her with eyes open wide, his breath quickening. "We're going to get burned alive. Burned alive, Light!"

She walked up to him and flicked him hard on the forehead.

"Stop that," she hissed. "You're always bragging about that high IQ of yours. Put it to use and get us out of here!"

The air was growing thick with smoke, and the flames were rapidly approaching the hallway. She stared into the fire, her eyes stinging from the heat. Suddenly, she noticed a smell that didn't belong in her apartment. _The hot desert sun. The sound of screaming children. The smell..._

"Light! Are you listening to me?"

Hope's voice brought her back into reality. "What?"

"I think I have an idea."

She watched as he picked up her backpack from the floor and pulled out a block of C4.

"You can't just blow up the door!" she snapped. "This is an old building. It would collapse."

Hope stared at the walls of the apartment with a calculating look in his eyes. "Not if the explosives are placed at the exactly right spot." He entered the bathroom again, his gaze wandering over the walls. "Yeah, this will do."

"Are you sure?" she asked. "Are you _absolutely _sure?"

"I'm sure," he replied. "Help me set this up."

She attached the C4 to the detonator and Hope placed the explosives next to the tiled wall. After setting the timer for fifteen seconds, they returned to the hallway and closed the bathroom door behind them. The smoke was even thicker now, making it difficult to breathe. Lightning was starting to feel a bit dizzy, and she had to repress the urge to cough the poisonous air out of her lungs.

"You better be right about this," she said, leaning against the wall to keep herself from falling over.

"I am," Hope said, and then the detonator set off the explosion. The blast wave made her lose her balance and sink to the floor. Her ears were ringing, and the world seemed to go in slow motion. For a moment she just sat there, wondering whether or not the ceiling would cave in and crush them both.

"Come on, time to go." Hope grabbed her wrist and pulled her back up on her feet. They hurried back into the bathroom where there was now a massive hole in the wall, creating an opening to the corridor outside. He stepped through the hole and pulled her out after him, still holding on to her wrist. She took a deep breath of fresh air—_fresher_ air, to be precise. The smoke from the apartment had already started to ooze into the corridor.

"Hey, is there anyone still up there?" Snow yelled from the ground floor.

"We're coming," Lightning yelled back. Before heading towards the stairs, she cast a final glance back at the front door of her apartment. At first, she didn't see it, but then she noticed a thin, almost invisible net covering the door. She'd seen contraptions like that during her training—the wires in the net looked delicate, but she knew from experience that they were just as sturdy as thick bars of steel. Someone had taken great care in making sure that the door would not be opened ever again. _They're definitely sending professionals now, _she thought. The Valhalla Corporation's assassins had made a serious attempt on Hope's life, and they had been frighteningly close to succeeding. _I should have been more careful._

They went down the stairs and joined the small group of people standing right outside the building.

"What on earth did you do, Light?" Snow asked her, rolling his wheelchair up to her side. "Serah always said you were a lousy cook, but this? What the hell?"

"I didn't do this," she snapped. "Someone threw a Molotov cocktail through my window. They even put gunpowder in it. My living room basically exploded."

Snow blinked. "Shit, sis, are you alright?"

She rolled her eyes but didn't correct him. "I'm fine."

"Seriously though, a Molotov cocktail?" he continued. "Why would anyone do that to you? Seems a little bit over the top for a prank."

"I think I saw a man holding a bottle with a cloth rag in it," an old lady butted in. "I knew he was up to something. He looked like bad news."

Lightning had a vague memory of having met the woman when she first moved in, but she wasn't sure. She'd never really had an interest in befriending her neighbors.

"We should chase after that piece of shit," Snow said. "Where did he go?"

The old woman pointed out the direction, but before any of them could react, they heard a man scream in absolute panic.

"Has anyone seen my daughter?" he shouted, dropping the two full shopping bags he'd been carrying on the ground. "She's eight years old, about yay high, black braids... has anyone seen her? Please tell me she's not still in there!"

"I'm sure she heard the fire alarm," one of the mothers from the second floor said, patting the man on the shoulder.

Her intention had most likely been to console the man, but the comment seemed to have had the exact opposite effect. His face turned pale.

"She's deaf! Oh my god, I need to go in there. I have to get her out." He tried to move closer to the building, but Snow stopped him by grabbing his arm.

"You can't go in there," he said in a calm voice. "The smoke is poisonous. You'd pass out in just a couple of minutes. I've called the fire department. They'll be here any minute."

"Any minute isn't soon enough!"

Lightning could tell that Snow wanted nothing more than to go and save the kid himself. Before his accident, he'd used to be a firefighter himself—a good one too, according to Serah. Now, he was permanently stuck on the ground floor. Lightning hated him, but a part of her also pitied him.

She sighed, staring up at the burning building. The firefighters would most likely be there any minute just like Snow said, but the fire was spreading really fast. The apartments closest to hers were already taken over by the flames. If there really was a deaf kid somewhere in the building, someone was going to have to go in there and get her out as soon as possible. She wanted nothing more than to chase down the culprit who'd just destroyed her entire apartment, but her conscience wouldn't let her.

"You live in the second apartment to the left on the third floor, right?" she said to the man. "I'll get her out."

Everyone's eyes were suddenly fixed on her. The man stared at her in surprise and then nodded.

"You're the former soldier, aren't you?" said the mother from the second floor. "Do you really think you can do it?"

Lightning nodded. "I'll be right back."

She began to jog towards the burning building. _Don't think about the fire, _she thought to herself. _Don't think about the fire, don't think about the fire, don't think about the fire._

"Light!"

She came to a stop when someone grabbed her arm. It didn't surprise her at all. She turned around to face Hope.

"It's our fault this building is on fire," she told him. "I'm not going to let an innocent kid get burned alive because of me." _Not again._

He looked at her with worry in his eyes. "That building won't hold forever, and then there's all the smoke... Are you sure you can do this? You're not invincible, Light."

"I'll be alright." She gave him a small smile. "Don't worry."

Thinking about anything but the fire, she ran into the burning building without looking back.

* * *

Hope didn't want her to go. He could see why she needed to get back into the burning, close to collapsing building, but he really didn't want her to go.

"Be careful," he yelled after her, but she was already gone.

"What a brave young woman," the old lady said. Hope only nodded. _Too brave_.

He still couldn't stop thinking about the way she'd pulled him out of the couch when the glass bottle went through the window. She had covered him with her body—her small, surprisingly light body—and it didn't feel right to him. If the Molotov cocktail had had a bit more gunpowder in it, she would have gotten seriously injured. He too, probably, but not as much as her. It bothered him. Fang had asked him to look out for Lightning, and so far, he'd been pretty lousy at it. He hated how useless he was in situations like this. Lightning was inside a burning building to save a deaf child, and all he could do was to wait for her outside.

Suddenly, there was a loud crash coming from inside the building. Lightning's neighbors gasped, and the miserable father started crying.

"Shit," Hope cursed, running into the building. The stairs had collapsed, turning into a big pile of debris in the middle of the staircase. "Light, are you okay? Light!"

"I'm fine," Lightning yelled from above. "I just need to find another way out."

He looked up and found her on the third floor, standing on the edge of what used to be the stairs. The smoke was so thick up there he could barely make out the small, unconscious child she was carrying on her back.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" he shouted.

"It's okay," she yelled back. "I have an idea."

She backed away from the edge and disappeared out of his field of view.

"Damn it," he muttered to himself. Somehow, he could already sense that he wouldn't approve of her idea. He left the collapsed staircase and went outside again. Lightning's neighbors were all staring up at the burning building, their eyes fixed at one particular spot. He turned around and looked up.

"Oh, no," he mumbled. "No, no, no."

Lightning was up on one of the balconies, tying a sheet around one of the bars in the railing. When she'd made sure the knot would hold, she climbed over the railing and used the sheet to hoist herself down to the balcony on the second floor. The little girl was awake now, clinging onto Lightning with all her might.

"This is insane," someone whispered from the small audience. Hope agreed.

Lightning was just about to tie a second sheet around the second floor balcony railing when a strange, creaking sound echoed through the building.

"It's happening," one of the mothers said. "It's going down."

The next moment, the old, rickety building began to collapse. The first thing to go was the balcony right above Lightning and the girl. Hope could see Lightning hesitate for a millisecond, and then she climbed over the railing and jumped. The girl screamed, and Hope's heart nearly stopped.

Lightning landed hard on her feet, her knees buckling from the impact. The third floor balcony crashed into the one on the second floor, and small pieces of debris rained down over Lightning and the girl. The girl finally stopped screaming, and on unsteady legs, she climbed off Lightning's back and ran to her father.

"Thank god," the father said, wrapping his arms around her. "Thank god, thank god, thank god." The father and his daughter began to sign to each other in a wild conversation no one else could understand. Hope hurried to Lightning's side, grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the collapsing building. After putting a safe distance between them and the building, they sat down on the ground.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah." She lay back on the asphalt with a groan, closing her eyes. "Damn, that hurt."

He looked up at the burning building and then back to her. _She just jumped twenty feet to save a disabled kid. _He shook his head, staring at her in awe. _She's an actual superhero._

"You're amazing, you know that?" he said out loud.

She smiled. "I have my moments."

Hope lay down next to her. He stared up at the sky in silence for a moment, trying to make sense of his insane morning.

"So I guess they found us, huh," he finally said. "Someone really just tried to kill us."

"Yeah. I have no idea how they found us, though." She sighed. "I must have underestimated them. I'm sorry."

On impulse, Hope moved his hand slightly to the side. Their fingers touched, and he could feel her tense up. At first, he thought she'd move her hand away, but then she relaxed again. He carefully took her hand in his.

"You don't have to apologize," he said, squeezing her hand. "I'm still alive, and so are you. That's what matters."

She didn't look fully convinced but nodded anyway.

"Hey!" a male voice suddenly shouted from afar. "Hey sis! Hey! Lightning!" The voice seemed to come from the other side of the street. Hope recognized it as the voice of Lightning's sister's former fiancé.

"What do you want?" Lightning yelled back.

"I caught him! I caught the guy who threw the Molotov bomb!"

Her eyes snapped open. "He caught the Valhalla Corporation assassin? How? He's in a wheelchair!" She groaned again. "I'm going to have to stand up, aren't I?"

Together, they managed to get back up on their feet and follow the sound of Snow's voice. They found him on the lawn of a nearby park, sitting on top of a man in a suit. His wheelchair lay upside-down in the grass a couple of steps away from him. Hope had absolutely no idea how Snow had pulled it off.

Snow grinned proudly when they approached him. "He thought he could outrun me. He was wrong."

"Get off me, you ridiculous excuse of a human being," the man in the suit grunted. Hope realized that he recognized the voice.

"Light, isn't that...?"

"My so-called handler, yeah. Stay back. Don't let him see you."

Hope nodded and hid behind a nearby tree.

Lightning walked up to Snow and his captive. "Who are you? How did you get that fake CIA identification?"

Yaag Roosch stared up at her in surprise. "You're alive?"

"I am." She bent down and picked up a folder from the ground—the folder containing the blueprints to the fusion reactor. "I'll be taking these. How did Valhalla Corporation find us?"

Yaag actually looked confused. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"And how did you know I've never met my handler?"

He raised his eyebrows, looking at her skeptically. "You still haven't figured it out, have you?" He snorted. "I see why they took you in now."

"Stop avoiding my questions!" she yelled, her hand moving towards her shoulder holster.

"Don't," Hope shouted from behind his tree. Snow grabbed her ankle, as if physical contact would make her less inclined to shoot the man. Yaag used Snow's moment of distraction to throw him off his back and take off, running towards the street.

"Damn it," Lightning hissed and ran after him, but before she could catch up with him, a car drove up to Yaag's side. He opened the door to the passenger seat and jumped inside. Hope watched as the car drove off, chased by a furious Lightning.

"Well, that sucks," Snow said. "Hey, could you give me a hand?"

Hope nodded and helped him back into his wheelchair. "I'm sorry about the building."

"I'm just glad no one got hurt. It would have been nice to catch that bastard, though. Who the hell was that?"

Hope sighed. "I honestly don't know."

Lightning seemed convinced that the man had been sent from Valhalla Corporation, but Hope wasn't so sure. He thought back on Yaag's and Lightning's conversation back in the apartment. If Yaag had known that Hope was in the apartment, why hadn't he simply gone into the bathroom and killed him straight away? How could he have known so much about Lightning's mission? Why had he chosen to be discrete and set the apartment on fire, when he could have just pulled a gun on them just like the other assassins had done?

The only possible explanation finally sunk in, and the realization sent shivers down his spine.

_That man was not sent by Valhalla Corporation, and he was not here to kill me_, he thought, swallowing hard. _That man was from the CIA, and he was here to kill her._


End file.
